Tag Archives: creatures

2025 Wrap-up & Happy New Year!

4 Replies

Hi, folks. Happy New Year to you all!

I always tire of typing it, but it has been a while. I’ve been distracted towards the end of last year, not so much from hobbying, but more from keeping the blog up to date. Daily life and writing have been getting in the way, though I have been able to use painting and building minis as a stress reliever.

The last couple of months, I’ve been looking into skirmish gaming, looking to do more with the collection of minis in my cabinet. I was looking into Assassins & Templars: A Ruckus Game, from Wargames Illustrated’s November issue, as I really liked the models that were being used to show off the game. These are from Gripping Beast, which has a lot of very cool pieces in their shop. I had to show some proper restraint; I started with a small retinue of assassins, which draw in part from their Arab military kit, as well as a few standalone metal minis. Pictured below are two assassins, a long range character, as well as a priest mini I was using as an imam.

I have also been working on some fantasy minis, including my Lord of the Rings models, and finishing up work on this proxy mini of Buhdur the troll cheiftain. I had recently acquired a pot of AK Interactive’s snow terrain mixture, having really enjoyed their battlefield mud tub, and used it on our wholesome troll here; my plan is to use him as a random encounter in Frostgrave, which is another skirmish game I have been diving into.

My son recently showed an interest in Mordheim and Frostgrave, and I have been grouping many of my minis into warbands with a new spark of excitement. I also picked up a few sprues from the Frostgrave kits and began kitbashing every manner of unit I was planning, including many Mordheim warbands. Pictured below are a Grave Robber warband, the rules of which I found on the Mordheimer site. These include a lookout, a graver, a junior medic, a couple of grave diggers, and a thug.

Trench Crusade remains in my brain also, and I have been chipping away at the remaining minis that are grey, of which there are few. The Observer has been relatively straightforward to paint, sticking with the colour scheme from the rulebook, as I liked the contrast between the red and gold.

Finally, I have been painting up a warband for Frostgrave, as my son has also been showing an interest in playing the game, mainly due to the wizard creation system. I’m helping to paint a warband of his own so we can play together, as well as some terrain. There are many scenarios in the rulebook that we’re keen to try, and I’d like to write about these as I go.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and I wish you all the best for 2026.

Take care.

Deathclaw (and various ghouls)

4 Replies

Hello, folks.

The round off the minis I got painted this weekend past (I did say it was a weirdly productive one), I present the deathclaw. This beauty was included in the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare starter box, and is an absolute bonus. When you consider the crux of the box to be survivors vs super mutants, having a huge deathclaw in there too adds insane amounts of value to the box, in my opinion.

I took more than a few cues from Sonic Sledgehammer’s YouTube channel in the painting of this creature, though mine did turn out much darker than expected. I used a lot of drybrushing to build up the armoured sections, and dappled on the paint on the soft tissue areas, like the belly and the undersides of the arms. It was all tied together with a wash of Reikland Fleshshade

In gaming terms, the deathclaw is a brute (which is likely expected). I started the series at Fallout 3, so my own experience of these terrors only goes back that far, but the first time I ran into one in Old Olney still haunts me. Just seeing this hulking mound of muscle for a few seconds before it pounces is a gaming memory I can’t shake. In Wasteland Warfare, they are listed with 11 Strength and 12 Endurance, which is the attribute their health points are linked to. The rest of their stats are lacklustre, but the abilities that the deathclaw brings to the table give it a boost.

With Barge, the deathclaw can move through smaller enemy bases, meaning he can’t really be bottlenecked by tiny foes. Unnerving applies a -2 for all skill rolls that are not attacks on the deathclaw itself, within a presence range of blue . The deathclaw swipe and crush are its two attacks, dealing 2 or 3 damage respectively, with chances to potentially stun and throw opponents.

I am yet to use the deathclaw in a match, still working my way through the scenarios in the starter box which happen to be mostly super mutant-based. I’m keen to see how long a deathclaw can hold out against Nora and a posse, having recently tried this with Lorenzo Cabot. (Spoiler: Lorenzo won).

I also started painting my ghoul remnants. This kit is made up of ferals in various workday uniforms, and includes a police officer, soldier with comms backpack, an armoured trooper and a fireman, etc. After painting Reilly’s Rangers and being super accurate with my painting for once, I wanted to slap some grime and ink on a unit of troops. And with the deathclaw finished, I can add these ghouls to a little Creatures force when they are done, and have them assault a team of survivors in the near future.

Currently, I still have 3 of the 6 ghouls to base, and I have already begun on painting the forces of the Institute. More on them later.

As always, thanks for reading. Take care.